...living a lifestyle of cultural awareness and preservation!

July 30, 2009

I've made some really great friends and met some fascinating and inspiring women through scrapbooking. Please pray for one of my scrap buddies, she's a mother of 7 and had three aneurysms last week. Praise God she's still with us, but still in ICU.

I made this card and prayed for her while making it. She gave me the african fabric scraps as a gift...she makes the most beautiful quilts which I have photos of...but have spent a week hunting through my 60,000 digital photos. When I find them...and I will, I'll post them.

July 29, 2009

This weekend we are having a small family gathering with my Grandmother's siblings...I'm preparing a talk to share with them my latest genealogy finds with them and the results of our dna ancestry test.

My goal...GOAL is to have a memorial table of those who have recently passed away and to have mini heritage albums as centerpieces. I've gotten five of the six memorial labyouts done. Finding decent photos was the hard part. SOme of the photos I found were hard copy so they didn't scan so nice nor enlarge, but hey...my deadline is Friday and I have to work with what I have which is better than NOTHING. My goal is to not be artistic, just a nice presentation for our family album...which I just had scanned and can share electronically with any family member that asks. This particular family album has 66 pages and that does not include the images you see here and the ones I plan on adding with census docs and newsclippings I found on www.ancestry.com.

I'll post more about my presentation after the events this weekend.

Two comments about this layout...the artificial blue carnation bottom left is from a floral arrangement my dad picked up at her funeral...blue was her favorite color...the letters from her name are glittery...just like her and the photo is my husband's favorite (he shot this photograph of her about 10 years ago)...I guess that was three comments.

Aunt Elsie...my great-grandfather's sister who passed in 2008 in her 90's...she's the aunt I spoke of in my essay published in Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker's Soul. I played up her denim vest to show her youthfulness and heat embossed the letters for the pearl look of her jewlery.

My grandmother's sister...Aunt Margie (Margeeee) my favorite aunt, we talked for hours on the phone...I would frequently have sunday dinner with her and her husband while I was in college, they lived within blocks of my dorm.

Aunt Stella...I forced my kids to look at her good at her funeral...I told them to make me look just as beautiful as she was in that casket...whew she looked good. She had an infectious laugh that just made everyone laugh and smile...I didn't get to see her much, but she always knew what was going on in my life and made feel special and close to her.

what do you start a layout with..the paper or the photo...how about the letter T...it was a scrap from something and I designed the whole layout around the letter T...silly or not...I love how it turned out. Paper was from a Classy Coordinates kit (hoarding two years worth) for special use...and this was it.

July 22, 2009

See there is work in the federal government if you love and care for scrapbooks (other than working at the Smithsonian). I can across this solicitation today "Digitization of non-textual records, scrapbooks", So there is hope that one day my love for scrapbooks will bring me real money! LOL

Digitizing is what I'm about lately, I organized my digital images from just one family line last Friday...took about three hours. Here's something textual I cam across.

It's a sermon written by my great-great grandfather, my dad scanned it for me a few years ago. Looks like I'll have to re-scan it (1) one page at a time, at a higher dpi (2) stitch it together if it's too big for the flatbed.

How precious is this. Already I have printed it out as background paper to use on a project for his kids (now 70+ years old). I trust all of my large-scale scanning and digitizing to Monica at www.harborscrapbooking.com

July 18, 2009

Back on July 3rd I posted my plan on how I was going to deal with the 2,000 photos from vacation. I'm glad to report that I have made progress.

I have slapped photos into a pre-decorated travel theme album that I won at a silent auction ($25) and we have something to show friends. CLICK HERE to see the inside pages

I sorted all of the photos by day!

My plan has been revised, (see here for original plan) because it was just that a plan, something to motivate me, (plus plans are made to be changed)...not a strict set of standard operating procedures. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

July 16, 2009

I heard this saying "Everybody has a story...be proud of yours." today and had to take it to heart. A couple of weeks ago, I reunited with my best friend from grade school (Bladensburg Elementary). Glynis got to pay us a visit and my kids were shocked to even think that I had friends in school. Glynis told my kids how I was bullied by this girl in school on a daily basis (really it was only 2nd or 3rd grade until middle of 5th grade). I did forget one important fact in all of that, which was most of the adult teachers were afraid of her and she beat up our 5th grade teacher.

Any hoo...she never put her hands one, just nagged and picked on me and Michael, a special education student. One thing I knew then was that I was on her bad side, because I defended Michael, which ultimately means I took a stand...I had a conviction about something...not bad for 2nd grader.

After her visit, I thought maybe I didn't want my kids to know that I had been bullied, but it is what it is.

Earlier this week, I connected with a good, GOOD friend from college. She told me how she uses our friendship to teach her Sunday school class. How she hung out with me at the parties to make sure I made it home safely because of all the drinking & drugs. Yes, I was known to down a fifth of Jack Daniels (Black Label only) almost everyday. At first I was embarassed by those memories, but I was glad to report to her that those days were short lived and now I barely can hold down a glass of wine. My life changed, because I made better, BETTER choices. So...that's my story and I'm proud of it.

July 11, 2009

I am very fortunate that my GG Grandmother's house is still standing and that we still have family gatherings there. Recently, when we were all gathered there for my Great Aunt's funeral, we found a new scrapbook. One particular party that was held in the house was my Great Grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary in 1965. I study these photographs for the little details, how the room was decorated, the china, the punch bowl, glassware and etc.

Here's one of those photos that I've seen more than a dozen times. What I never noticed before is that I am the infant my Dad is feeding to the right! LOL!!!

July 09, 2009

This is the topic of a speaking engagement I have this weekend. As I was preparing my text for this event, my husband came across this note (in the garage) I jotted down more than 2 years ago.

Should this be a rare scrap of paper, let's say my great great granddaughter finds one day, what will she know about me from this list? She'll know, at a minimum, the following:

I worked in publishing (somewhat true, I had a book published)

I drive (well in this case I had to have someone drive me around for 2 days)

I had allergies (pollen was so high my eyes constantly watered and I couldn't drive)

A "grandmother" was in a home (my husband, Jerry's grandmother had alzheimers and was placed in assisted living home)

I went to Florida (went to florida on a business trip, over a weekend)

Some one graduated (my first cousin had yet another graduation from a medical feloowship program)

Peggy had Cancer (my mother's sister started her battle with breast cancer)

Oh yeah...I was stressed!

Now if I had found something similar of my Great-Great Grandmother, I would be in heaven, but then full of questions. Whether we acknowledge it or not we are the window to our family's past. So I'll add this note to the back of an album I actually did create about my daily life in April 2007 with a bit more details about the stress in my life.

July 06, 2009

There is still space left for this all day crop with mini seminars about Heritage scrapbooking.

You do not have to be working on a heritage scrapbook to attend this crop. However, by attending you can learn interesting information and references to use in the future, when you are working on a heritage album. The crop is open to anyone who wants to spend time scrapbooking, taking classes, or attending the mini seminars.

Heritage layout by Janet Johnson

Attendees will have access to all of the mini seminars, classes, shopping with vendors, use of Harbor Scrapbooking scanning and printing services, and will receive a Heritage Resource folder containing presentation slides, a CD, and other heritage related information).

There are three registration options available:

Crop space, two meals, and goodie bag – $50.00

One meal and goodie bag – $20.00

Goodie bag – $10.00

This Family Heritage Theme Crop also offers one-on-one consultations with a Genealogist and heritage-style page layout classes.

Speaker topics include:

"You Are the Window to Your Family's Past"

Lisa Sanford, Author of the book Ethnic Scrapbooking, will explore why we as scrapbookers must gather and document our family heritage. She will also discuss how to bring your family together while investigating the past.